Economic Termites: Monopolies not noticeable enough for most of us • Hacker News Board

Re: Economic Termites: Monopolies not noticeable enough for most of us

#231

Post by Izkata » Sun, Jun 09, 2024, 6:14 PM UTC

lotsoweiners wrote: post #204

mperham wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Try to get an appointment to see a doctor. Food deserts.

> Try to get an appointment to see a doctor Done this literally dozens of times over the past couple of years for myself, kids, and wife and have never had an issue. Even been offered appointments same or next day. Am I missing something?

Are you urban, suburban, or rural?

Something I've been suspicious of for a while now, the farther from the cities the worse it is. Grocery prices, for example, didn't start rising in the city I'm in until a year or more after I started seeing people complaining about it, and a good chunk of them were suburban or rural.

Re: Economic Termites: Monopolies not noticeable enough for most of us

#232

Post by rangestransform » Sun, Jun 09, 2024, 6:15 PM UTC

netbioserror wrote: post #160

apsec112 wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since 2016, real (inflation-adjusted) wages have risen quickly for people in the bottom quartile, while for upper-income workers they've been stagnant. Obviously, most people on HN are still better off than manual laborers, but the gap has narrowed substantially (a big reversal from 1995-2015) and that's a good thing. https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_pr...

Way to completely miss the anecdotal point about rural cultural decay. You can point to a chart showing rising wage growth all day, but if it's happening at the expense of long-lived communities being hollowed out, you're effectively celebrating peoples' destitution. It is incredible how Internet armchair technocrats will attempt to reduce human existence to a few equations and wonder why broader populations despise…

Rural existence is already subsidized by urban dwellers, I dunno what more they expect

Re: Economic Termites: Monopolies not noticeable enough for most of us

#233

Post by JumpCrisscross » Sun, Jun 09, 2024, 6:16 PM UTC

pydry wrote: post #97

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Economic "models" make assumptions like markets being efficient No? You’re thinking of a specific class of models. Generally speaking, prescriptive economics is about characterising what an efficient market would look like and then identifying why reality is not that. (And whether that deviance is good or bad.) This article could be seen doing that. It seems like domains should be closed to $2, given an efficient m…

Most of the assumptions made in economic models conceal sources of profit. They dont appear to be there to simplify complexity because they simulate situations that have never and will never be approximated (never been perfect competition or information, never will be). It's unlike, say, physics in this respect.

> Most of the assumptions made in economic models conceal sources of profit

This is wildly inaccurate. A huge amount of economics is focussed on profit. For obvious reasons.

> never been perfect competition or information, never will be

Frictionless surfaces are mostly a fiction, too. That doesn’t mean calculating the expected outcome in a frictionless condition is useless. If the deviance is more than you’d expect from friction, that’s informative.

Unlike physics, a lot of people think their undergrad 101 course plus skimming the Economist an economist themselves makes. It’s a common hubris, albeit one unusually common in tech. (Disclaimer: I’m not an economist. But I know the boundaries of my circle of competence in this.)

Re: Economic Termites: Monopolies not noticeable enough for most of us

#234

Post by enraged_camel » Sun, Jun 09, 2024, 6:18 PM UTC

bwanab wrote: post #227

spicyusername wrote: post #6

I very much agree with the premise that economists unduly focus on a few metrics of dubious quality - labor force participation, personal consumption expenditures, market capitalization, wage growth, etc - and overfit them to construct a coherent narrative about the "strength" of the economy and what the experience of living in that economy must be like. There's a story right now being peddled by all the talking head…

The personal experience of the economy isn't quite as you make it. In polls, people do complain about the national economy being in terrible shape, but by a fairly good margin report that their own finances are in good shape. It's hard to weave a coherent narrative from those contradictory data.

This discrepancy is easy to explain. My personal finances are quite fine but I have a LOT of friends who have to make a living doing several gig jobs. Said friends are, on paper, employed, and are getting by. But they are quite miserable: stressed, overworked, no leisure time and no benefits.

That’s why the article author is correct that macro stats aren’t good at capturing the quality of the lived experiences of people - just the quantities.

Re: Economic Termites: Monopolies not noticeable enough for most of us

#235

Post by estebank » Sun, Jun 09, 2024, 6:22 PM UTC

izacus wrote: post #171

estebank wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you need to look at perception and fix the reasoning behind it. Many times that perception is shaped by the media we consume, which has no obligation to have any connection to the reality on the ground. At that point whatever is done to improve the reality doesn't have to have any impact on people's perception.

Which means that the fix is to change the media not the metrics. That's the gist of the argument - if your improvements of "reality" aren't making people happier, you're changing the wrong metric. In this case you need to change the media, not crime stats.

Changing the underlying reality without improving the perception leads to a political disconnect. Improving the perception without improving the underlying reality just makes people happier, but not better off. You have to do both if your objective is to improve people's lifes.

Re: Economic Termites: Monopolies not noticeable enough for most of us

#236

Post by CPLX » Sun, Jun 09, 2024, 6:27 PM UTC

gruez wrote: post #229

CPLX wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you should still be able to correctly answer whether it went up or not Why? Who fucking cares? Some guy calls my phone during dinner with some survey about the economy. I answer every question with a variation on “fuck you and your economy” and then hang up. I grew up in a family of social scientists and yet it still shocks me how much people actually believe the words “studies say” and “experts insist” when it com…

>I grew up in a family of social scientists and yet it still shocks me how much people actually believe the words “studies say” and “experts insist” when it comes to matters of human sentiment and opinion. But the question we're asking isn't "how people feel about the economy", it's "how the economy is actually doing". I don't think anyone here is seriously arguing that the public is wrong about their own "sentiment…

Do they get a reward for being "right" in the eyes of the survey company or something? They are being asked how the economy is doing and they are saying fuck this. I'm guessing people have a basic sense that when they answer a media survey they're contributing to the narrative that the media will use, and they want the narrative to be this sucks. It's really not that deep.

As for "sentiment and opinion" it's the basis for democracy. Of course we should give unlimited credence to it when deciding how to organize society, what's the other approach?

Re: Economic Termites: Monopolies not noticeable enough for most of us

#237

Post by gruez » Sun, Jun 09, 2024, 6:29 PM UTC

ramblenode wrote: post #230

gruez wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I think this goes the other way around. Our method for understanding the economy is flawed and is not properly capturing what all consumers know intuitively, things kind of suck, even when you have a job and even when you're still buying things. It seems kind of lazy to observe that anecdotes contradict statistics, and then conclude that it's the statistics are wrong without providing any empirical evidence to the c…

> It seems kind of lazy to observe that anecdotes contradict statistics, and then conclude that it's the statistics are wrong without providing any empirical evidence to the contrary. Anecdotes are empirical evidence. Statistics are just collections of anecdotes obtained through systematized processes. As such, statistics are only as good as the process. 1 good observation can be better than 100 bad observations.

If you want to be nitpicky I suppose you can claim that anecdotes is technically evidence and therefore that statement is incorrect, but in the context of that comment it doesn't change much. We basically have data collected by statisticians at government agencies compared to... people's vibes. As you said yourself "1 good observation can be better than 100 bad observations", so I still think it's a poor argument to claim the professional statistics are wrong, and the only evidence you have is evidence that's worse than the ones you're trying to refute.

Re: Economic Termites: Monopolies not noticeable enough for most of us

#238

Post by emseetech » Sun, Jun 09, 2024, 6:30 PM UTC

boppo1 wrote: post #212

apsec112 wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since 2016, real (inflation-adjusted) wages have risen quickly for people in the bottom quartile, while for upper-income workers they've been stagnant. Obviously, most people on HN are still better off than manual laborers, but the gap has narrowed substantially (a big reversal from 1995-2015) and that's a good thing. https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_pr...

>real (inflation-adjusted) wages lol. The whole point of this discussion is that our metrics are not properly measuring things. The reported inflation number is a joke. See: anything in life that matters like - a house - a car - an education - health care - raising a kid - basically any life-milestone but TVs and electronic toys have never been cheaper so it's all okay! Hedonic adjustment!

| an education

The community college in the area I briefly lived growing up was $17 a credit hour in 1997. Inflation adjusted that's $31.67 a credit hour.

It's now nearly $140 a credit hour. Almost 4.5x more than inflation.

For a community college.

Re: Economic Termites: Monopolies not noticeable enough for most of us

#239

Post by PartiallyTyped » Sun, Jun 09, 2024, 6:32 PM UTC

megaman821 wrote: post #208

PartiallyTyped wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't believe these changes can drive such an absurd increase in housing costs.

Structures do cost more. This is mostly increases in labor and code compliance costs. In hot markets the structure cost is dwarfed by the land cost though. There is only so much prime real estate available. That won't stop techies from trying to build a house in a factory to bring down prices, even though that makes little sense.

Here, in Ireland, the cost is pushed up mostly by planning. There's plenty of space, but due to planning (mostly limited by NIMBYs and apparently professional objectors), it is difficult to actually get approval for anything.

There's plenty of space and myriad of old houses in a state of decomposition, but only houses can be built, and apartments are scarce. People are going into bidding wars where you need to throw an extra 20% just to win the bid.

It certainly isn't the cost of materials or labor costs.

Re: Economic Termites: Monopolies not noticeable enough for most of us

#240

Post by Terr_ » Sun, Jun 09, 2024, 6:32 PM UTC

phkahler wrote: post #20

silverquiet wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with much of this and I'll add one of my biggest stressors - opaque pricing. One of the biggest "innovations" in the US in the last decade or so seems to be to add as many hidden fees as possible to every service imaginable. Obviously it's hardly a new idea; I'm sure that human nature being what it is, they had to deal with it in Mesopotamia. But it makes budgeting very difficult; I suppose it's like living i…

>> I'll add one of my biggest stressors - opaque pricing. Economic "models" make assumptions like markets being efficient. Meanwhile in the business classes next door they teach how to avoid competition because it's a race to the bottom. They all learn the prisoners dilemma as an example because it's how you need to think to avoid overt collusion. I'd like an economic model as powerful as the laws of thermodynamics,…

Yeah, "the free market" tends to have cheerleaders with contradictory premises for how it will work. For example:

1. "With perfect price/deal information, this math shows economic actors will be super duper efficient."

2. "Since people have the freedom to make secret deals for hidden prices, this prevents cartels by allowing defection."

Unfortunately it feels like rather than addressing the contradiction, they prefer to quietly march under the same banner and in the end we get neither benefit.